Viewers Show Little Interest In Coverage

TOM JICHA

Friday was a seminal day in the history of the United States, if not the world. Never before had America simultaneously waged war and debated the impeachment of the president.

Thank goodness, it didn't interfere with the soap operas.

Dereliction of duty by the broadcast TV networks?

Hardly. If much of Congress didn't care what was going on in its own House -- there was vivid evidence of mass indifference -- there is no reason television should be gigged for not being more attentive.

ABC, CBS and NBC spent the morning covering impeachment activities at the House of Representatives, which is more than can be said for most legislators. Given the historic circumstances, standing room only might have been expected. The wide-angle shot revealed otherwise.

CBS anchor Dan Rather noted that junior varsity basketball games are better attended. Later, just before soaps took over, NBC's Tom Brokaw made a similar observation, pointing out that the hall was pretty much deserted. Again at 5 p.m., CNN panned an almost empty chamber.

For the most part, legislators speaking animatedly on impeachment were seeking face time on newscasts back home. This is nothing new. It's done at the end of most legislative days for C-Span, which is instructed to focus tightly on each speaker so constituents can't see that their representative is addressing a deserted room.

There is no indication viewers feel cheated by the lack of broadcast network coverage. When soap operas were preempted on Wednesday for the funeral of Gov. Lawton Chiles, there were several calls of protest to the Sun-Sentinel. Friday's abandonment of impeachment coverage for soaps brought zero calls.

Another indication that viewers feel they have heard and seen enough of both the impeachment contretemps and the attacks on Baghdad came Wednesday and Thursday evenings.

With the initial siege of Iraq only hours old on Wednesday, the networks put on their usual entertainment-dominated lineups, and ratings were on par with the norm. More illustrative is that ABC, CBS and NBC each devoted a news magazine to the attacks. Dateline NBC hit its usual mark. CBS replaced To Have and To Hold with a news special, and it matched the network's usual ratings for the hour. But To Have and To Hold has been canceled. ABC's 20/20 didn't do as well as it normally does with exposes and celebrity interviews.

Thursday was more of the same. December is a low viewership month, because people are distracted by the holidays. With war and impeachment updates available on cable, ratings this week could have been expected to be especially low. Not so. NBC's dominant Frasier and Veronica's Closet had their highest Nielsens since Oct. 8. The entire night was NBC's best since Oct. 29, which means it outperformed the highly promoted November sweeps month.

Later, opposite expanded newscasts on some local stations as well as Nightline, Jay Leno had his biggest tune-in since Sept. 24.

Perhaps news junkies have become accustomed to relying upon cable in times of crisis. CNN, CNBC and Fox News Channel all reported audiences more than double the norm. CNN had its two highest viewership days of 1998 on Wednesday and Thursday. However, with the broadcast networks reporting no loss, the cable audience must have been dominated by new viewers. The imposing percentage increases notwithstanding, the actual numbers of extra viewers came to only about 2 million total.

There were understandable reasons why these momentous stories have failed to grip the nation. The outcome of the impeachment vote has been considered a foregone conclusion for weeks. Moreover, it is widely assumed that the votes are not there in the Senate to remove the president from office.

Also, despite the presence of cameras in Baghdad, while there were only audio reports during Desert Storm in 1991, Desert Fox has generated few compelling pictures, or even news. Reporters are confined to the International Communications Center, while ground zero has been well off in the distance.

What fireworks there have been have been mostly futile Iraqi anti-aircraft fire.

As CBS's Mary Roberts reported on Wednesday, "They would have to be extremely lucky to hit anything."